In a Champagne Special the Marquette Warriors topped the Cincinnati Bearcats in a battle of bubble teams, 79-76 in overtime.
Jimmy Butler and Darius Johnson-Odom led MU with 20 points each. Butler delivered the coup de grace in overtime with the basketball equivalent of "hey look, your shoe is untied!" as he broke free for a three-quarter court pass and dunk on a routine in-bounds play with 15 seconds remaining.
True to form the resilient Lazar Hayward was credited with the assist on the Butler dunk. The senior struggled for the first 39 minutes of this afternoon's game, missing 9 of his first 10 field goal attempts before connecting on a long three-pointer with 27 seconds remaining in regulation to force overtime. In overtime Hayward dominated scoring 5 points, grabbing two rebounds and handing out the game's key assist.
Hayward finished with another double-double, 13 points and 11 boards. Joseph Fulce played out of his mind, matching his career-high of 13 points to go with five boards in just 15 minutes of action.
With the win Marquette moves to 17-9 on the season and 8-6 in BIG EAST play. With four games remaining in the regular season Buzz Williams' team remains on an improbable path towards the NCAA tournament. Winners of five of their last six, the Warriors will look to extend the hot streak on the road against resurgent St. Johns and talented Seton Hall later this week.
The sublime Brad Galli recaps the win for MUTV ... by the way, Galli runs circles around the unprepared lightweights that ESPN Regional Television saddled viewers with this afternoon.
Box Score
By the way, are there any other Marquette fans who want to thank Mick Cronin for refusing to play the dominant Yancy Gates for more than 22 minutes? MU had no answer for the Bearcats' big man -- so thanks, Mick.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Warriors top Bearcats in Overtime Thriller
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Great win today guys. I have to say its very nice to see someone like Fulce contributing both in terms of points and rebounds. We could really use performances like that more often. This was a MUST game, in my opinion, and coupled with the assistance of our dear friends, Uconn & NC State, I feel pretty good about our bid chances.
I must say, however, we need to start figuring out how to maintain leads. I am not in favor of the way Marquette seem's to play "run to run" basketball. I wanted to see us not just beat Cincy, but crushing them would have been nice. We were up 13, 17-0 run in the 1st half. Gotta maintain. C'mon, we're a good team and have God on our side.
Bottom line, I'm sleeping good for at least tonight. GO MARQUETTE!
Post a Comment